Los Angeles daily herald., 1887-05-28
A Question OF Purses.

A Question OF FuTses'
The entrance of the son OF Sem
ator Hearst into the field OF san
Francisco journalism has had the Ell
feet of greatly increasing the cost OF
publishing newspapers there. Young
Mr.. Hearst had just left college, and
choosing to try his hand at journal
ism, took charge of the Examiner,
and entered upon his new field with
all the vim, energy and relish OF a
thoroughbred colt let loose for his
first exhibition on the turf. Having
unlimited means behind him, he
started out to make the Eraminer
what it had not been, a superlatively
live paper. Having studied the
methods of the De Youngs, he adopt
ed them in many particulars. He
made his paper the vehicle to convey
to the public all the sensations that
could be dragnetted out OF great
city, although he has been careful
not to 90 to the personal lengths
which the elder De Young did during
his lifetime. His next move was to
procure the cable dispatches that are
exclusively telegraphed to the New
York Herald. The intrinsic merit OF
these dispatches is not much. They
are padded out to make a great show,
and columns of twaddle about no.
bodies and trihing European events
are published in San Francisco that
would not be considered worth print
ing il picked up at home. The
cable dispatches of the Associated
Press are of far more value
TO the general reader, because
they give only the most I'M
portant news transpiring in foreign
lands, divested of reportorial specu-
lation, small talk and persifage.
But the Examiner having made a
strong feature of its cable dispatches,
the other leading papers were
Obliged to follow suit. So the Ckron-
icle and Call fell into line, and now
their European news is something
fearful and wonderful to contemplate.
The three rival papers, not content
with publishing ordinary sized
sheets, are gradually enlarging their
dimensions, by supplements, to such
mammoth proportions as to make it
a laborious task to wade through
their endless columns to find the
news one wants to read. But now
com es a new kink which will greatly
add to the expense of newspaper
publishing in San Francisco. Young
Hearst, with characteristic audacityl
last week announced that he would
run special Sunday morning trains
on all the roads leading out of San
Francisco, so as to distribute to the
towns along them the Sunday edition
of his paper. This is a legitimate
and ingenious stroke OF enterprise;
but it still further materially in
creases the expense OF publishing.
The Chronicle has followed suit; but
the Call hesitates. Whilst Mr..
Hearst is starting out splendidly in
his journalistic career, and is max
ing IL lively for his contempo-
raries, it looks to an outside
observer as if he was taking
advantage of his unlimited financial
resources to force his rivals to spend
a great deal more money in their
business than would otherwise be
needed. What this sort OF rivalry
will lead to or where it will stop, it is
impossible to say. If the balloon ex-
periments now being made by aero
nauts in San Francisco should sue
ceed, and navigation OF the air be-
come as reliable as that OF the water,
we shall find Examiner air ships, fol-
lowed by Chronicle and perhaps Call
balloons, exploring the upper regions
for news. We have said it is impos-
sible to foresee where all this will
end; but we were little hasty.
Some fine day a newspaper man with
common-sense ideas will come along.
He will start paper on the princi-
pie of giving the public all the news
in a condensed shape. He will de-
scribe a dog-fght, if at all, in six
lines instead of column and half,
and leave out the pictures OF the
dogs. He will discuss the topics OF
the day in short and pithy articles.
He will make the reader eschew the
blanket sheets, and give them
handy paper of moderate dimensions,
full of meaty news matter instead Of
windy chat. The people of San
Francisco are just waiting on tip-toe